Blogs: Hippocampal Atrophy

Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Hippocampal Volumes in Depressed Youths

Depressed Youth

Major depression disorder is a mental health condition in which unrelenting feelings such as sadness, hopelessness, anger, or frustration persist for prolonged periods of time and interfere with a person’s daily life. Although major depression arises most commonly in early adulthood, anyone can develop major depression disorder, including children and teenagers. While depression has been…

Obesity and Hippocampal Atrophy

Recent data shows that worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980. In 2014, almost 2 billion adults were overweight and of these, over 600 million were obese (World Health Organization). Evidence indicates that obesity is not only a major risk factor for conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and musculoskeletal disorders, but also a…

Brain Changes Associated with Chronic, Heavy Cannabis Use

Several recent studies indicate that heavy cannabis usage appears to be associated with significant structural changes of key brain regions over time. With recent legal changes in social and medical consumption of cannabis in several countries, questions over the drug’s effects on the morphology of brain structures continue to arise. The psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is…

Early-Life Stress and Amygdala Hypertrophy

Different forms of early-life stress may shape the development of brain areas involved with emotion processing and may increase vulnerability to adult mental or behavioral disorders. Examples of types of traumatic events include natural disasters, experiences in institutional care, assaults, witnessing violence and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Considering that exposure to stress in humans…

Hippocampal Volume Measurement and Memory Loss

Memory is a highly constructive cognitive process that takes place in our everyday lives and consists of encoding, storing and retrieving information. Our memory is not located in one particular place in the brain, but is instead a brain-wide process during which several different areas of the brain act in conjunction with one another. One of the areas that plays…

Hippocampal Atrophy in Critically Ill Patients

Critically ill patients may suffer delirium, encephalopathy or other neurobehavioral abnormalities, often with lasting effects. This is thought to be a result of systemic inflammation which compromises the blood brain barrier and leads to neural damage. The hippocampus is particularly sensitive to inflammatory and hypoxic change, both common sequelae to acute severe illness and/or chronic…